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August 1, 2013

Have you heard about "The Great Gmail Freak-Out Of 2013?" Tori Deaux coined this hilarious title for the mass hysteria that has set in since Google created a Promotions folder in Gmail for all of our newsletters and -- yes, promotions -- to be sent to.

I have to admit, when I started getting e-mails from coaches and gurus I follow with the desperate pleas to drag their e-mails onto my Promotions tab, I started to panic a bit myself.

Would my Gmail-using readers still be able to see my Presentation Pointers newsletter? Would they still find out about programs and services I'm offering? I started to freak out, too.

Yes, in my latest newsletter, I did give instructions to my readers for how to find my newsletters and how to add them to their Primary inbox, should they so choose. But really, if someone is looking for my e-mails and they haven't done this, they can still find them in the Promotions inbox. So hey... no big woop.

Personally, all my Gmail feeds into my desktop Thunderbird client and I manage all my folders and filters from there. So my mail is still going where I want it to go, with or without Gmail's approval. You can do that, too, if you don't want Gmail telling you where your mail should go.

But this is manageable. It's not the end of the world. And as Tori says in her post:

"In the past, I've missed out on a lot of your promotional offers.

Your email was buried under Facebook Pokes, coupons from office supply stores, updates from Twitter, political diatribes from Uncle Herbert, support tickets from clients and web hosts and vendors, and I just missed it. Or maybe I saw the email, opened it, wasn't able to take action right that instant, and it got buried all over again.

With one big inbox, if I want a coupon from a store I frequent, I have to search my email for it. If I suddenly remember that I didn't see your expected monthly promotional awesome, I have to search for that, too – and it isn't always as simple to find it as you might think. (trust me, because I do this searching-my-email-for-your-stuff thing a lot.)

But now?

I can just glance at the tabs.

The most recent senders are shown on the tab itself. Cool, huh? And to see more, I can click onto that Promotions tab, and find your stuff SO much more easily than before. It's no longer lost in a whirl wind of other stuff."

So. If you want my e-mails to go your regular Gmail inbox, you can just drag them from the Promotions inbox into the Primary inbox by dragging onto the Primary tab. You can even get rid of the tabs altogether. Or just leave it the way it is and find them in the Promotions inbox.

I hope you continue to find my content valuable, useful and relevant to your speaking growth and improvement. If not, you're not reading my messages anyway, and this new feature won't change that.

2
comments. Please add yours!
:

Sebastián Lora
said...

I've seen a lot panic as well... This is why I have set you up as sender to "main inbox", instead of "promo inbox". However, having my gmail inbox in my mobile phone, I see all email together, so this hasn't affected me much as a recipient. We'll see what happens to my own newsletter... But I refuse to panic.

Thanks, Sebastián. :-) I still find it easier to dump it all into my desktop inbox and filter from there, but I guess Gmail is assuming people don't know how to filter their mail and want to do it for them! Hopefully people figure it out. Good luck with your newsletter getting through to your readers!